


Copper Pennies in the Sky

by mmmdraco



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't need mysticism tonight. I have realizations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Copper Pennies in the Sky

From Earth, sometimes, the moon looks like a tarnished penny in the sky. It's nearly copper, and somehow illuminates just enough to be mystical. I don't need mysticism tonight. I have realizations.

While walking around the little mansion that I call my home this night, I was hit by what some would call an epiphany. I realized that I matter, but I don't want to matter. Hit by that epiphany like a grand slam swing at a baseball championship, I am on the floor, in a nightgown, because I realize that I am a fool.

How could I not have realized that I was trying to kill myself? I saw a boy named Heero Yuy attempting, and succeeding, at very dangerous things while looking like he was constantly on a suicide trip. I knew that he wasn't, though. But, I would try to be around him as often as possible, despite the fact that trouble was always on his heels; the kind of trouble that can kill someone if they don't know what they're doing.

Let it be said that I never know quite what I'm doing. Yet, there I was. And, if it weren't for Heero, I would have died a while ago at the tender age of 15.

It's a hard life to be a princess, or the daughter of a foreign minister, or a pacifist, or Queen of the World, or even the principal at a school for peace. Yet, I have held all of those positions, and all before I could even turn 16. I am practically a world leader, at least for all intents and purposes, and life, sometimes, truly seems as though it isn't worth it.

When I am around Heero, I am reminded of a father who is unsure of what to do about his daughter who cannot help but want to be like her father when she certainly isn't capable. He treats me a bit like a daughter. He keeps me safe, and worries about my comfort, and even feels obligated to dance with me... but I am not girlfriend material to him, and I don't truly want to be. I just want to be near him because I feel safe... even though I'm probably not.

For the first 15 years of my life, I was happy. God knows I was happy. I had friends, and family, and I was treated with respect, even if it wasn't quite for who I was, but because of whose I was. That made some decisions in my life sort of hard to come by, but then something happened which made me stop caring.

Right around my 15th birthday, I stumbled across a boy on a beach and got a glimpse of true human nature. He was short and young, with messy hair and dark blue eyes, and a space suit in an ugly color that I think is exactly the shade of my hair in winter. He was unconscious when I arrived, and after I called an ambulance for him, he seemed to realize it somehow and jumped to his feet, covering his face and asking if I'd seen it. I'd seen enough that I don't believe I'll ever live to forget it. The ambulance arrived, and he took off. Wouldn't you know it? He stole the ambulance. At that time, I didn't yet know his name, but entertained an introduction to the wind which blew into the spaces where his shadow had fallen. I'm Relena Darlian... and you are?

He showed up at my school and I entertained more silly ideas. As my birthday party was coming up, I was handing out invitations left and right. I needed as many people as possible to fill up the house that I lived in. Not only was it huge, but it had a tendency to feel empty. I didn't like emptiness, and I still don't. But, when there's a void, it must be filled by something, and for me... that's where Heero came into the picture. He was a mysterious boy, and when I gave him an invitation to my party, he ripped it in half. My eyes teared up as I whispered how cruel he was. He wiped away my tears, and told me he'd kill me. They seemed like the sweetest words I'd ever heard. They were almost as good as, "I love you."

From then on, my fate was entwined with Heero's fate. Yet, I can't say that there wasn't some intervention. When my father died, killed by OZ, I went on a mission. I found out all that I could about OZ, and also found out that Heero was fighting OZ as well. I'd seen him in action several times by this point, and could say in all honesty that I believed he could do everything he set his mind to do. It was because of that fact that I made it a mission of my own to keep an eye on what he was up to. As the daughter of Vice-Foreign Minister Darlian, I had connections that most girls with supposed crushes don't have. Even more seemed to appear after my father's death. As I was revealed to be a Peacecraft, I distanced myself from the Darlian family, despite the fact that I still had a mother with whom I had shared almost all of my cognizant life. Somehow, after finding out the truth, I couldn't bear to be near her. And I latched on to Heero.

Somewhere in there, I realized that my true father's philosophy of True Peace was a good tactic. I became as well-read on the subject as I could possibly be, and then began to travel around as a Foreign Minister in my own right, fighting for the Sanq Kingdom: my birthplace, and my birthright.

I started a school for people of other countries to come to in order to learn about the Sanq Kingdom's view on war; the ideal of absolute pacifism would not have to be just an ideal. A girl named Dorothy Catalonia transferred to the school to perform a sort of audit of the curriculum for the Romafeller organization. Though her ideas and mine were almost complete opposites, I found myself becoming friends with her. I recognized her as a formidible opponent, and at the same time, recognized that I was equally as formidible in my own right, if only because I shared her passion, but for peace, not for war.

When Heero arrived with another Gundam pilot in tow, Quatre Raberba Winner, I asked him to attend my school. If nothing else, it allowed me the chance to show him that I had grown up in the time since I had last seen him. If Heero had been attractive before, it was nothing to how he looked in his tailored uniform. However, this time... when I looked at him... I could see nothing but the respect that he held for me and the respect that he demanded from me. The pair we were, and yet weren't...

Throughout the rest of my life, I know that I will find a way to be strong. Heero has inspired me, and made me realize more things about myself than I every cared to know.

If he had never come into my life, would I still be like this? I am happy, but strangely unfilled somehow. That it why I still rush into battle right alongside Heero, even when he has a shield and armor and I have but skin.

Maybe sometimes I think my skin is armor. Perhaps I shine because I am truly made of Gundanium, and that is why I have never broken. It is a silly idea, but perhaps that is even why Heero admires me. He's as tough as Gundanium himself. I don't truly believe that Heero feels that way about me. I do think he does think of me as someone to protect, and nothing more. There are millions of girls and, if I take the time of think of it, guys who would be perfectly willing to let Heero string them along for as long as they could manage to keep breathing, but I don't believe that I can do that. So, I'll run on the sidelines where it's still dangerous, but I'm still cheering him on, just not as some major player.

Heero Yuy... there are days when I think you could tell me that you love me, and then smile for me, truly, for the first time and ruffle my hair as though you are proud of me. Maybe then the emptiness will go away. Maybe then I'll be able to forge my own path in life instead of walking next to you and hoping I don't play the part of the fool *too* well. Maybe then I'll feel as though I am me, Relena, without the ridiculous surnames and titles which define only my past and present, not my future.

Perhaps once you tell me you love me, I might love me too.


End file.
